Abstract
In 2013, the California State University (CSU) system required that all degree programs, even those in engineering would be held to 120 total units. This mandate required that SJSU’s College of Engineering needed to rethink its courses to reduce to 120 units. The result of the restructuring has yielded a new two-course sequence intended to establish a relationship between the student’s classroom experiences and engineering in the community, both in the U.S. and globally. Faculty in the engineering senior project classes then created GE activities linked to their specific major. The first engineering General Education (GE) course is focused on social justice and it is aligned with the first semester of the senior project course in the major. This paper discusses the impact of the social justice perspective upon students’ understanding of the relationship between engineering and society in the United States. We have selected student papers from the GE course and the student’s major course and completed a contextual analysis of the themes from the papers. We hope to determine whether students demonstrate a social justice perspective from this analysis.
Presenters
Patricia BackerProfessor, Aviation and Technology, San Jose State University, United States Laura Sullivan Green
Professor and Department Chair, Civil and Environmental Engineering, San Jose State University, California, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Social Justice, Undergraduate Engineering, Qualitative Research
